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Thursday, October 2, 2014

Stuffed Roast Pork Tenderloin

Autumn is here, so bring on the roasts! I'm no longer afraid of my oven and decided to do a nice Sunday evening meal of Roast Stuffed Pork Tenderloin.I was feeling especially ambitious as it was nice and quiet around the apartment (Kris was off watching football with his buddies) so I made the stuffing from scratch as well, because go big or go home!What's nice about a roast is that once you're done the prep and it's in the oven, there's time to clean, have a glass of wine, and read a chapter or two of your book before anything else is required. Some people might feel that's too long a process, I say embrace that time! Wine is delicious and Pinterest is always Poppin' if books aren't your thing!Below is the recipe for the Stuffing as well as the directions for the Roast Tenderloin. Enjoy!Homemade Stuffing:

Ingredients:

6 pieces of bread (regular toast bread)

6 Green onions

3" segment off of your pork tenderloin, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp olive oil

milk

dried rosemary

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1) Take your slices of bread (I used the odds and ends of old bread loaves in the freezer) place on cookie sheet and put in oven on low (about 200-250) until toasted. Remove and cut into 1" squares. Set aside in a bowl

2) Mince your green onions and garlic. saute over medium-high heat in Olive Oil on the stove top

4) Add 1" segments of bread to the meat mixture, occasionally adding dashes of milk until bread is damp but not drenched. It's important that the toasted bread become almost spongy. This is of course a preference, depending on how you like your stuffing you may want to add more milk.

5) Continue stirring, add salt and pepper to taste. Remove the stuffing from the stove top and transfer to a bowl. Store in the fridge until you're ready to use.

Now for the main event!

Roast Stuffed Pork Tenderloin: (serves 4)

Ingredients:

1 pork tenderloin

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp dried rosemary

1 tbsp mint (dried or fresh)

1 tsp salt

fresh cracked pepper to taste

stuffing

Directions:

1) Preheat your oven to 375 F.

2) Take your piece of tenderloin. Remove any of the fat or silver portions from the loin. Then, cut tenderloin in half length wise so you have two long pieces. *Another option is to make this meal with two pieces of tenderloin. In that case you may want to carve out a hollow in each loin so that the stuffing fits between more easily*

3) Cover both pieces of your tenderloin in the olive oil, making sure to cover both sides of each piece. Then, sprinkle your salt and dried rosemary over both sides of each piece.

4) Flip the pieces so that the "outsides" are facing up, then sprinkle mint and pepper onto this side ONLY

7) Grab a baking dish in which to place the meat for roasting. You may want to put down some pieces of twine to help hold together your tenderloin before you put the meat in the dish. Place one piece with the outside (mint side) down in the pan (on top of the twine).

8) Take your stuffing and spoon onto the pork loin on the "inside". Gently push down to form a log of stuffing, approx 2" high.

9) Take the other side of pork and place on top of the stuffing "outside" up. If you used the twine, now is the time to tie the ends together to keep pork in place while it cooks. Be sure to secure tightly.

10) Roast in the oven approx 30-40 minutes or until thoroughly cooked

You're done! To serve, cut into 1 1/2" thick medallions (and be sure to remove the twine!). If you find when you're done stuffing your roast that you've made too much stuffing, make an envelope out of tinfoil and place the extra stuffing inside to cook in the oven with the roast. This will bake it nicely to be served as additional stuffing along side your roast.